Movies
Sony’s Screen Gems Launching a Dedicated “Horror Lab” to Create Original Horror Movie Content
Sony Pictures is looking to capitalize on the current mega-popularity of the horror genre by opening the Screen Gems Horror Lab, a partnership between Sony’s genre label Screen Gems and production company Ground Control. Via Deadline, the Horror Lab is “an initiative that will focus on the development and production of horror genre proof-of-concepts.”
“The program aims to collaborate with burgeoning filmmakers to produce horror shorts with the primary goal of developing new, original content into feature films.”
“Ground Control is currently in search of a new battery of diverse filmmakers from around the world with strong, original horror concepts.”
“We envision the Horror Lab as another step in the evolution of our label as a leading genre supplier,” said Screen Gems head Steve Bersch. “We pride ourselves on supporting next generation creatives and see this as another way to bring exciting new talent and ideas to global audiences.”
Scott Strauss and Michael Bitar will oversee the program, with Ground Control’s Scott Glassgold serving as producer on the shorts and potential feature length films.
Movies
‘Desperation’ – Sam Raimi and ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Directors Teaming for Stephen King Movie
Stephen King’s 1996 novel Desperation is headed back to the screen, with Jeff Sneider breaking the news on The InSneider that Sam Raimi, Stephen King, and Final Destination Bloodlines directors Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky are coming together for the film.
Sam Raimi will produce the upcoming Desperation movie, while Stein and Lipovsky are on board to direct. Searchlight Pictures is the studio attached to the feature film project.
Published in 1996, Stephen King’s novel Desperation was previously turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber back in 2006.
Wikipedia reminds, “Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to ‘rescuing’ a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive.
“They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from which he came.”
Desperation was published at the same time as Stephen King’s own “mirror novel” titled The Regulators, which shares characters but takes place in an alternate universe.
The union of Sam Raimi and Stephen King is an exciting one for fans of both Raimi and King, and there’s a nice bit of full circle history there too. As you may recall, it was Stephen King’s review of The Evil Dead that Raimi credits for saving and legitimizing his indie debut feature.
And the rest is history! Stay tuned for more on this developing story.
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